With the unanimous agreement by the Cape Coral City Council on the newest 30 percent design mark of the complete overhaul to Jaycee Park, the 12 million dollar project is expected to begin construction in the fall of 2024. Separate from the GO Bond parks and recreation plan that was approved by the Council in 2019, the renovations of Jaycee Park will be funded separately and not on timelines like other parks in the plan.
Located at 4215 SE 20th Place, Jaycee Park will have a plethora of improvements made, including an amphitheater, food truck stop, splash pad, cafe bistro, boat slips, and more. While originally, residents disapproved of the renovations, Council’s openness to public opinion has resulted in the ultimate approval of the project.
To update and supply Jaycee Park with all needed amenities, the Cape Coral city website lists that, “Jaycee Park is one of the few public waterfront properties in the city of Cape Coral. While Jaycee Park is an ideal location to celebrate the views of the waterfront, the view is currently minimized by a strand of exotic, invasive trees, and the park lacks amenities that are commonly expected at premier waterfront parks.”
In charge of this complete overhaul to Jaycee Park is Assistant City Manager Connie Barron, who from day one has been spearheading all aspects of the project.
From initial proposals to final agreements over the project design, Barron has been running this show, feeling that that taking advantage and making the most of the public waterfront property was necessary for the city, “They [the park amenities] are very extensive, very good amenities, very family oriented amenities to bring to the park, being able to have that walkway that goes all the way out, and have that overlook over the water. That’s a very family friendly amenity, even though they [residents] complain about the bandshell stuff, the bandshell can be a very family friendly opportunity as well.”
The driving force behind these renovations, in Barron’s eyes, was the ability to have boat slips in Jaycee Park. This would make the most of the waterfront property since places like the Bimini Basin Area and Tropicana had limited areas to have waterfront access for boaters and residents on land alike, “But there weren’t a lot of permitted boat slips there [Tropicana],” said Barron.
Jaycee Park, however, provided new opportunities for this access. “Jaycee Park had 63 permitted boat slips, so then we were started thinking and talking about well, ‘wouldn’t it be nice to have some boat slips right there off Jaycee Park so people who are going up and down the river can pull off and get go into one of the boat slips and come and go to Jaycee Park,’” explained Barron. “That was where the actual thought process started; that we would just do boat slips there.”
Councilman Tom Hayden, who voted for all renovations except the inclusion of alcohol to Jaycee Park explained that he felt Jaycee Park needed some love. “I think we have a situation where we have very nice quaint neighborhood park right now that the residents around there love immensely as we’ve heard over the last couple of months, but we also saw an opportunity to enhance one of our very few waterfront parks. Those enhancements included the boardwalk on the water, small bistro food trucks, a bandshell, kid’s [splash pad] and other pavilion mix, [and] increased parking,” said Hayden. “We looked at it as an opportunity to make [Jaycee Park] more attractive for other residents of Cape Coral or from other areas of the county that may want to enjoy a feature that we don’t have a lot of- Cape having a park on the water.”
As a massive goal for the overhaul to Jaycee Park was to remove the invasive Australian pines, both Barron and the Cape Coral Council wanted to ensure that shade wouldn’t be an issue. Likewise, public consensus from locals was that shade was the most important change needed at Jaycee Park.
To ensure that the public remained involved and informed about changes nearby, multiple opportunities within the last two months were created, including an open house at Mercola Market on August 31st and an online survey open for 10 days to “solicit feedback on various park amenities,” according to the Chamber of Council presentation.
As a direct means of change, Barron mentioned how increasing the amount of shade trees was one of the first steps of action. “If you saw the original concept and see the new one now, you can see that there is shade all along the shoreline. Yeah, there [are] now shade trees planted in the walkways over there where the seat walls are. Those are much wider than they look on. Print like this concept. They’re about 20 feet wide. Or look as fairly as it’s really good size but when you get over there with those seat walls are when the lawn area is to the on the shoreline. That’s 20 feet wide so we could put trees down there,” said Barron. “We added another 120 shade trees. We’re helping to basically develop a really impressive shade canopy in the park within five years.”
One of the goals of this project is to start to host more “family friendly” activities for residents. According to Hayden, this could be a plethora of different types of events. “We’d like to have more events at Jaycee Park, just take advantage of the space that’s there,” stated Hayden. “I think it’s [the bandshell] a nice opportunity for different people to go and perform if they want to, and then if we do have the occasional special event there, then we have the band show ready to go [to] the bandshell.”
Perhaps the biggest outcry over the renovations to Jaycee Park has been over the decision to serve alcohol in the park at the bistro. Hayden, who voted against these changes, explained, “I don’t believe it’s needed there. A park that usually opens from dawn to dusk I think, serving soft drinks, ice cream, [and] a couple of food trucks, to me, will still be attractive for people even to voters that are able to come in and use the boat slips that will be there.”
Like Hayden, residents nearby have sparked concerns about having alcohol in a place that has been marketed and framed as “family friendly.”
Barron, however, ensures that the alcohol supplied in the park will not be a nuisance or aim to cause issues for residents nearby. “The bar itself is an amenity to the amenities. It’s there to complement them not to overshadow them,” mentioned Barron. “It’s not a sports bar, and that’s not what we envision at this particular location. It’s not going to be someplace where someone’s going to go down there two o’clock in the afternoon and by seven o’clock can barely walk out.”
